Restoring Awesomeness

September 14, 2010 5:24 AM

Not more then a few days ago, the reddit community started a campaign to call Stephen Colbert to hold a rally tentatively called Restoring Truthiness in counterpoint to the recent Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" rally. Today redditors put their money where their keyboards are through direct action and broke the previous records and servers by donating $46,983 $92,004 to the school-teacher funding DonorsChoose.org in Operation Truthy Classroom obliterating records set by Hillary Clinton's donation campaign (which has been active since 2008) in less the eight hours. (Previously, and more previously.)
posted by loquacious (117 comments total)

So is the rally happening or what? Or is this just a "go reddit!" post?
posted by Eideteker at 5:29 AM on September 14, 2010

No one knows if the rally is happening yet. But, yeah, go reddit! I'm as pleasantly surprised as anyone. They're apparently becoming a genuine force for good. So... good news, everyone!

(This is about as much thread-modding as I'm going to do, so have at it!)
posted by loquacious at 5:33 AM on September 14, 2010

I thought this was a little cringeworthy, like crowdsourced comedy always is, until I saw the numbers they're putting up at donorschoose. I don't see how Colbert can NOT do something with this energy -- still don't see a "truthiness rally" per se happening, though. I'll definitely be watching the show to see how he reacts to this.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 5:38 AM on September 14, 2010

cmon Eideteker, without reddit Metafilter would have about 30% less FPPs
posted by the noob at 5:42 AM on September 14, 2010 [5 favorites]

Reddit is one of the hoses which feeds the Metafilter faucet.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:42 AM on September 14, 2010 [14 favorites]

I don't visit Reddit, so I appreciate posts that are good on their own merits. Thanks, loquacious.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:46 AM on September 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

Recently, reddit has been the source of about half of my fpps.
posted by empath at 5:46 AM on September 14, 2010

Should make a Coffee Party-like splash.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 5:51 AM on September 14, 2010

If you were willing to guess, who do you think has the ability to motivate more people to action (attend a rally/donate, basically something more than sit on your couch and nod in agreement)- Colbert or Beck? Serious question. Colbert probably has a smaller overall audience, but the Colbert Nation is motivated.
posted by mkultra at 5:52 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

It fucking irks me so much to read "Restoring Honor" and to think that this was actually the name given to an event. A combination of Rudolf Carnap and Noam Chomsky needs to publish a paper in which the language of the Tea Party is divided into "Connotative" and "Denotative" categories. I suspect that it is 95 / 5.
posted by Dia Nomou Nomo Apethanon at 5:52 AM on September 14, 2010 [6 favorites]

Reddit has been my secret sauce for the majority of my posts for almost two years except for rare personally researched exceptions, but I get to expand a lot on what I post since we allow multiple links and a lot more text for a post, and I try to dig deep and choose wisely for what I filter to the 'filter.

More and more they aren't our rivals at all, and they never were. More and more they're just us.

Like most things 90% of everything is crap, there's a lot of noise and nonsense, but it's a hell of a firehose, and they're generating and developing into one hell of a community. I've met a lot of new people there, and I've seen a lot of familiar MeFi users, too.

Sorry if this is too much GYOB. I rarely wax political and try really hard to not to editorialize or be too subjective, but the exuberance and end results of this recent development was too much awesome not to share.
posted by loquacious at 5:55 AM on September 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

who do you think has the ability to motivate more people to action.. Colbert or Beck?

Beck. He whips people into an angry fury as he appeases their world view. Colbert makes people laugh while appeasing their world view. The human capacity to be pissed and angry and derive great energy from that is one of our most notable features.
posted by nomadicink at 5:55 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Dia N, that's why "Restoring Truthiness" is such a perfect nom de snark for this event. Just as the no honor was missing or needing restoration, the truthiness was right out there with Beck and doesn't need to be restored either.
posted by localroger at 5:56 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hard for me to find recent viewer numbers between Beck and Colbert, but I think they're not very far off, both around 1.5 million.
posted by empath at 5:56 AM on September 14, 2010

This isn't just recycling a Reddit post, it's a post pointing to a thing happening on Reddit. Are we not allowed to post about stuff happening on the web now?
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:57 AM on September 14, 2010

Liberty Island?

This is going to be fun to watch unfold.
posted by zombieApoc at 5:57 AM on September 14, 2010

More and more they aren't our rivals at all, and they never were. More and more they're just us.

I think metafilter and ask metafilter both would comfortably work as a subreddit, tbh.
posted by empath at 6:00 AM on September 14, 2010

without reddit Metafilter would have about 30% less FPPs
In the interest of balance, perhaps someone can make a point for reddit now.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:02 AM on September 14, 2010

Pope Guilty: "Reddit is one of the hoses which feeds the Metafilter faucet."

I'm impressed that anyone can figure out how to navigate redit and I guess that I'm thankful that other people filter it for me here so I don't have to.
posted by octothorpe at 6:03 AM on September 14, 2010 [26 favorites]

Dia Nomou Nomo Apethanon, I don't get what you're saying. I always thought the connote / denote distinction was orthogonal with Frege's sense / reference distinction (which your mention of Carnap would seem to support). But in the context you seem to be saying something about "dog whistles" or the preference of emotive association over rational discourse, or something. I'd like to hear you expand on what you meant.
posted by GeckoDundee at 6:04 AM on September 14, 2010

Nice to see some reddit love here for a change. I've been a redditor for several years now and it's by far the best agrregating source I have found for getting to see new, newsy, interesting, thought-provoking (and dodgy, and wacky) stuff first. Sure it has a lot of nonsense. Sure there's plenty of puerile jabbering there. But there's also really good wheat amongst the chaff and once you figure out how to use the site's initially rather confusing personalisation and filtering options you can make a satisfying and useful experience for yourself.
posted by Decani at 6:08 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

cmon Eideteker, without reddit Metafilter would have about 30% less FPPs You say that as if it was a bad thing.
posted by adamvasco at 6:17 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm impressed that anyone can figure out how to navigate redit and I guess that I'm thankful that other people filter it for me here so I don't have to.

Reddit is essentially a collection of specialist group blogs. The front page is a collection of the most popular posts from those 'subreddits' at any given time. If you sign up for an account, you can pick and choose which subreddits get priority to your personal front page.

Even without signing up, you can make your own customized front page by creating a bookmark like this one which collects "Today I Learned", "Does Anyone Else" and "Ask Me Anything".

Reddit is some ways a single community like metafilter, but it's also hundreds of sub-communities, each with their own in-jokes and mores, and I think if you approach it that way, it makes a lot more sense. It's also easier to 'get' reddit, if you focus on one particular subreddit at first, IMO.
posted by empath at 6:18 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Why I'm Voting Tea Party"
posted by schmod at 6:19 AM on September 14, 2010 [20 favorites]

Good to see reddit doing something cool like this. A lot of neat stuff comes out of that community, even though it's usually too much of a boyzone for my tastes.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:20 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

I guess it depends what you read on reddit. I'm sure there are a bunch of 'girl friendly' subreddits. I'm curious how a well written 'reddit, you need to stop asking girls to show you their tits' post would go over. I'm guessing probably not well.
posted by empath at 6:29 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

> I'm sure there are a bunch of 'girl friendly' subreddits.

There are many, but the one I see most often is: http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/

But then there's /r/jailbait, which is exactly what you might think it is.
posted by vbfg at 6:38 AM on September 14, 2010

Jesus. And here I was thinking all Reddit was was some dude pretending to be his own grandfather for the lulz.
posted by ob at 6:45 AM on September 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

"Why I'm Voting Tea Party"

Ha, that's good.

"We have two types of politics: Fair AND Balanced."
posted by ob at 6:48 AM on September 14, 2010

still don't see a "truthiness rally" per se happening, though.

Why wouldn't you? It's comedy gold! Although Stewart does a better impression, and it will be hard to top Beck as a parody of himself.
posted by fungible at 6:48 AM on September 14, 2010

MeFi could learn a lot from Reddit. Yes it can be puerile, and LULZy and teh b00bs. But there are loads of incredibly smart, funny people there, and it's an order of magnitude less uptight than MetaFilter.
posted by Scoo at 6:50 AM on September 14, 2010 [14 favorites]

/r/feminisms is also pretty good.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:59 AM on September 14, 2010

Oh, and stay away from /r/equality, it's completely overrun with MRA filth.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:00 AM on September 14, 2010

I'm sure there are a bunch of 'girl friendly' subreddits.

There are many, but the one I see most often is: http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/

Yeah, it's kind of depressing that there needs to be a 'women only' subreddit, but I was thinking more along the lines of subreddits that aren't necessarily stereotypically female, like, I dunno -- /r/knitting, but that aren't particularly stereotypically male like /r/gaming.

Not sure of a good example. Surprisingly, though, /r/gonewild (NSFW) is fairly girl and gay friendly for a subreddit entirely about people taking naked pictures of themselves.
posted by empath at 7:02 AM on September 14, 2010

I guess it depends what you read on reddit. I'm sure there are a bunch of 'girl friendly' subreddits. I'm curious how a well written 'reddit, you need to stop asking girls to show you their tits' post would go over. I'm guessing probably not well.

Yeah, probably not. I don't want to cause a derail, but I deleted my reddit account (right around a rape joke thread/the comments on the picture of the Tinkerbell cosplayer) because I just felt so damn uncomfortable there. I think/hope it's just a vocal or thoughtless minority. The "girl-friendly" zone is about discussing feminism and makeup, not just normal stuff in a welcoming atmosphere like metafilter.

I actually frequent 4chan and find that less troublesome FWIW.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:05 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

I said this over at reddit, too, but I think this Truthiness rally is a terrible idea. I know there are a lot of folks to the left of the republican party - and even going slightly left these days can still leave you right of center - who are angry and want to have the same kind of tantrums as the right. But if the goal is to show the tea baggers how ridiculous they are, it won't work. They won't look at the spectacle and see parody and laugh at themselves or come to a realization that they were "wrong the whole time." FoxNews and the rest of the republican noise machine will either ignore it or play it for laughs... or worse, use it to rally their own base.

The left needs to stop using their ideas to be too clever by half.
posted by frecklefaerie at 7:07 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

What in the world does MRA filth mean?
posted by boo_radley at 7:08 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Reddit can certainly raise money. They raised an awful lot of cash for Direct Relief after the Haiti Earthquake. I helped! But I made a Metafilter account after I left reddit. There *are* folks there that are wicked smart, but I really could not deal with the rampant racism, misogyny, and bigotry. I love being on Metafilter because of our totally awesome mods. But speaking of chatfilter, Go Operation Truthiness! This is really the kind of thing Colbert seems to love, too -- it'd be amazing if he had a rally, but surely he'll pick this up on the show, right? I mean, that is not a small amount of cash! Go redditors!

(I do miss my 2XC girls sometimes. That was a really fun community.)
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 7:10 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

boo_radley: MRA = Men's Rights Activists -- which almost sounds like it might be a good thing? But it's not. They're awful.

Hey -- when did Colbert become a member of the Board of Directors of DonorsChoose? How did I miss that one? What a guy!
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 7:13 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Are we not allowed to post about stuff happening on the web now?

Reddit's not the web?
posted by blucevalo at 7:19 AM on September 14, 2010

empath wrote: "I'm curious how a well written 'reddit, you need to stop asking girls to show you their tits' post would go over."

As high as my success rate with this is, I don't think it would go over well if you told me I need to stop asking women to show me their tits.
posted by wierdo at 7:19 AM on September 14, 2010

(From the "Operation Truthy Classroom" link): We will no longer allow our hard earned tax money to push the liberal, fact-based agenda.

It's only TOO TRUE. Or should I say, TOO TRUTHY.
posted by sonika at 7:20 AM on September 14, 2010

How is this bad? DonorsChoose just got $20 from me. Seems like a win for them.
posted by dig_duggler at 7:25 AM on September 14, 2010

Donorschoose was a great choice, anyway. I never thought of it as being a political website, just a cool way for me to buy a bunch of kids their own USB drives, but on reconsideration it certainly is making a statement. Great way to draw attention to the lack of funding for certain schools.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:26 AM on September 14, 2010

What in the world does MRA filth mean?

"Men's Rights Activist". Men who combine raging, vicious misogyny with language appropriated from feminism. Take the most vicious stereotypes of feminists, invert them, and you've got the MRAs. They like to invade subreddits they deem as insufficiently respectful of het cis men and overrun them with misogynist spam and whining about how unfair the world is to men. The subreddits which remain readable after this happens are the ones not full of dipshits who think banning is morally wrong.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:27 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Pope Guilty: "Take the most vicious stereotypes of feminists, invert them, and you've got the MRAs. "

Brilliant! I was going to debate them on their facts, but stereotyping them viciously is so much easier.
posted by mullingitover at 7:33 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Picking apart reddit is like trying to pick apart the entire internet or the world itself. At this point, especially after the post-digg4.0 influx, it's just a mirror and reflection of averages with pockets of awesome.

As annoying as it is - you don't turn away from the entire world because it doesn't reflect exactly what you wish it to be, do you? No, you speak up and be the change you want to see.

These awfully pithy things being said - I often succumb to "BUT SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET" syndrome there, and I have to choose my battles to keep my hair from instantly turning gray.

It's good practice, though. Our differences make us stronger and all that happy hippie horseshit.
posted by loquacious at 7:34 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

The left needs to stop using their ideas to be too clever by half.

I understand this viewpoint. Sometimes I agree. But what's the alternative? I say that this is the proper first step - attract who you can intellectually first. If ridicule and derision doesn't stem the TeaBagger ascension then things are eventually going to get ugly; divisiveness has become the order of the day and the right is actively flaming the "us against them" dynamic.

So, humor first.

on another note: this "restoring honor" horseshit makes me viscerally angry. What honor, exactly, have we lost? How can this be anything other than the ranting of scared and angry white people? I'm open to any other interpretation...
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:35 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Should make a Coffee Party-like splash.

FTFY.

If you zoom in much more the display gets wonky, but the lines appear to have crossed about the time the restoring honor thing was actually a going news item.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:37 AM on September 14, 2010

"Today I Learned", "Does Anyone Else" and "Ask Me Anything"

I can see the usefulness of TIL and AMA subreddits, but DAE completely confuses me. What's the point? Does every poster just need confirmation that they're not some crazy unique freak for thinking what are always incredibly common thoughts?

I guess what I'm saying is
Does anyone else think that 'does anyone else' is an entirely useless subforum?
posted by graventy at 7:42 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

The left needs to stop using their ideas to be too clever by half.

Not everything needs to be done for political purposes.
posted by empath at 7:43 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

What honor, exactly, have we lost?

When I see this sort of thing in the wild, I usually comment "Well, it's good that you want to restore honor, after what the Bush years did to us..."

But since they are increasingly trying to distance themselves from his presidency, it's less fun that it used to be.
posted by quin at 7:44 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

MeFi could learn a lot from Reddit. Yes it can be puerile, and LULZy and teh b00bs. But there are loads of incredibly smart, funny people there, and it's an order of magnitude less uptight than MetaFilter.

The reddit self modding system - up/down voting and kama is preferable to the heavy handed modding here. Flagging is fair enough, but would be better if negative flagging buried a comment or FPP rather than the awesome hand of the mod.
posted by the noob at 7:45 AM on September 14, 2010

I don't know if I'm thinking too hard about it here, but:

I spent a lot of years being pretty politically active. I've attended tons of marches and rallies, been pepper-sprayed, punched and thrown around by cops, had shit thrown at me out of crowds lining the streets, heard tons of great speeches, met lots of great people.

But for every one of those rallies, everyone sort of knew what was going to happen once they got there. I mean sure, rallies on the left are always sort of a train-wreck, in that rallies against "free-trade" always turned out their fair share of "Free Palestine!" types, etcetc. And I guess if something was scheduled, Colbert would spend a few weeks shaping the narrative, but...what would the signs say? What would be the sort of canned things that the average attendee would say to the various local network roving cameras that the news producers could pick for their pieces? When you looked out across the inevitable tens of thousands of people who turned out...what would you see? I just can't picture it being anything other than just another mish-mash of stuff.

Would it be an anti-Beck/Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Faux news thing, that those folks could then exploit as a "poor me" thing and then wedge the right further off? Would it be pro-Obama? Or could he somehow get all those people who - although they're sure they all are, surely not all of them are as clever as they all think - to somehow all perfectly be in on the joke and act accordingly?

I don't see it happening for just this reason. Colbert is a genius, surely, and with Stewart even moreso, but they'd have to do an awful lot of work on air beforehand just to get it to look like they want.
posted by nevercalm at 7:51 AM on September 14, 2010 [8 favorites]

The reddit self modding system - up/down voting and kama is preferable to the heavy handed modding here. Flagging is fair enough, but would be better if negative flagging buried a comment or FPP rather than the awesome hand of the mod.

Ironically - if MetaFilter worked like reddit usually does your comment would be wrongfully buried so fast it'd crack the Earth's crust and send magma spewing into orbit. (Hey, I'm watching a documentary on geophysics at the moment.)

Both systems have their place. It's much easier to state controversial opinions here and still be heard (as long as you're not an an asshole about it) thanks to the awesome hands of the mods.

Reddit is more or less wide open - very near completely anarchic. MetaFilter is intentionally a slightly walled garden - or perhaps more accurately someone's living room, or a small but lively tea house. To scale MetaFilter to reddit's size would require a lot more mods, a lot more politics and a lot more really annoying MetaTalk posts.

If I had to choose between the two I'd choose MetaFilter if only for my health and stress levels.
posted by loquacious at 7:56 AM on September 14, 2010 [19 favorites]

$105,879 as of now.

almost 14k since this post went up aint bad.
posted by dig_duggler at 7:58 AM on September 14, 2010

Reddit is a terrible boyzone and only a slight improvement over 4chan, in my opinion. Yes, stupid comments can be downvoted, but I'd prefer they be refudiated so that others can learn why the comments are stupid. You don't learn anything by not being able to read someone's comment.
posted by desjardins at 8:10 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

Time Magazine's Newsfeed just picked up the story.
posted by loquacious at 8:14 AM on September 14, 2010

"cmon Eideteker, without reddit Metafilter would have about 30% less FPPs"

What does this have to do with anything? I was trying to figure out if there was actual news here about the possible rally, or if it's just an "internets in charitable action" post. It was confusing from the framing (I was expecting a [more inside]) whether the story was "reddit convinces Colbert to..." or "reddit donates some money to..."

I see that it's the latter, which is great, but not as interesting to me as the former would have been. The way that it's written, though, it's like it's a story about an ongoing event. "Will it work? We'll have to wait and see!" Which means if it's about Colbert, then it's not really a complete FPP (MeFi usually does better with stories where the dust has settled). If it's just about reddit, then it's kind of meh (yay, charity, but thin on news).

It was not a comment on reddit. I've never been to reddit, I don't read it. It was a comment on the FPP here on MeFi, which I do read.

(also, defensive much?)
posted by Eideteker at 8:18 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, stupid comments can be downvoted, but I'd prefer they be refudiated so that others can learn why the comments are stupid. You don't learn anything by not being able to read someone's comment.

I can only type so much in a day. I could use some help.

Also, there's more then a few comments that don't even deserve replies or rebuttals at all that are utter noise and make YouTube comments look erudite, which is what the ability to downvote is really for. Comments from the pointless and clueless such as "wut" (verbatim, no punctuation at all) to "fuck u faggot" - and thankfully these do get squelched sooner or later.
posted by loquacious at 8:19 AM on September 14, 2010

the heavy handed modding here

Can I buy some pot from you?
posted by Gator at 8:25 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't see it happening for just this reason. Colbert is a genius, surely, and with Stewart even moreso, but they'd have to do an awful lot of work on air beforehand just to get it to look like they want.

It's pretty easy, really. You don't do a political rally. You do a rock concert/comedy show. Why would you think that it would look anything like a political rally? If they do it, it'll be a piss-take on the whole concept of political marches.

If the black bloc and free mumia crowd shows up to this, it'll be hella disappointing.
posted by empath at 8:27 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've outsourced my downvoting to jessamyn and cortex: my RSI is better and they seem to know what I like better than I do. The nonlinear noisy reddiit fora are not very accessible.
posted by Rumple at 8:27 AM on September 14, 2010

localroger, I appreciate your nice turn of phrase, nom de snark !
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 8:36 AM on September 14, 2010

ob: "Jesus. And here I was thinking all Reddit was was some dude pretending to be his own grandfather for the lulz."

GRANDPA WIGGLY!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL He will always be real to me!
posted by symbioid at 8:41 AM on September 14, 2010

Ya know - it would be cool to find the dude who the photo of grandpa wiggly was and tell him he's an internet celebrity -- or maybe not. But I think he'd get a kick out of it. I know I would.
posted by symbioid at 8:46 AM on September 14, 2010

PAW PAW?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:48 AM on September 14, 2010

IAmA person who doesn't use Reddit and don't understand what it is. AMA
posted by ALongDecember at 8:48 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'd prefer they be refudiated

Sigh. We're really going to do the thing where we take the word that somebody misspoke and start using it everywhere?

As little tolerance as I usually have for this kind of meme, I have wayyyyyy less when the meme started with Sarah Palin.

Not really germaine to the topic, but grumble, I say.
posted by dry white toast at 8:49 AM on September 14, 2010 [5 favorites]

IAmA person who doesn't use Reddit and don't understand what it is. AMA

I was going to explain Reddit to you but somehow I suspect you're joking.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:00 AM on September 14, 2010

Sigh. We're really going to do the thing where we take the word that somebody misspoke and start using it everywhere?

As little tolerance as I usually have for this kind of meme, I have wayyyyyy less when the meme started with Sarah Palin.

George Bush gave us "the internets", sooooo
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:00 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

So did someone post this FPP to Reddit yet? Because I'm totally going to make an FPP about that if they do...
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:23 AM on September 14, 2010

I'd just like to say that as a person who happily describes himself as a socialist, my strangest achievement at reddit was to get myself banned from /r/socialism. This is the only subreddit where I have had the slightest attention from a mod. I fear my mistake was not to be obviously offensive or ideologically incorrect but rather to say that one of the links "...read like it was written by an educationally-subnormal Dave Spart wannabe". And then I noticed that the article in question was a self-link by the r/socialism mod. Oopsie.

So yeah, it's fair to say that while the code of conduct at reddit is far less regulated than it is here at MeFi, that occasionally cuts both ways...
posted by Decani at 9:24 AM on September 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

...but I really could not deal with the rampant racism, misogyny, and bigotry...

Yep. That would be why I left.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:27 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

reddit wasn't very nice to me and my wife.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:30 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Christ that's awful. That's actually one of the worst threads I've seen there.
posted by empath at 9:35 AM on September 14, 2010

refudiated is a great word. I'd use it no matter who coined it. The fact that it was popularized (not invented) by Palin only makes it more delicious.
posted by straight at 9:36 AM on September 14, 2010

reddit wasn't very nice to me and my wife.

You got 1550 points (4,054 up votes 2,505 down votes (I just added one to make it an even number)). That's pretty darn good.

Yeah, a lot of the comments suck, but most people don't comment, and those that do tend to do so when they disagree more often than when they agree.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:39 AM on September 14, 2010

Yeah, it wasn't that bad. The criticisms were silly, and there was some good stuff in there, too. And it's not like we didn't expect any negativity. We're strong and brave and resilient and all that shit, and have gotten so very much support that the bad stuff mostly slides off. Mostly. I mean, we also made Stormfront, and they weren't very nice, either.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:43 AM on September 14, 2010

Holy shit. Go reddit!
posted by homunculus at 9:44 AM on September 14, 2010

mullingitover: "Brilliant! I was going to debate them on their facts, but stereotyping them viciously is so much easier."

Has that ever worked for you? That is, with this segment have you either (a) convinced someone of the errors in the position he's assumed (b) recognized the flaws in your own position, or (c) been drawn to a dialog where participants have respectfully disagreed?
posted by boo_radley at 9:46 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Germaine is both my favorite lettuce and my favorite Jackson.
posted by box at 9:50 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

reddit wasn't very nice to me and my wife.
posted by MrMoonPie at 5:30 PM on September 14

Ugh. Yeah, some of that shit pretty much always happens when people post photos to reddit. You do have to have a fairly thick skin/good noise filter. On the other hand, sometimes it doesn't go that way. There was a thread recently where some kid posted a pic from a dating site. It showed a girl posing in front of a cluttered dresser and the poster had spotted a pack of Monistat there. The comment was something like "Dodged a bullet with this one". And the community basically proceeded to tear this kid a new one and point out that he was clearly a clueless virgin. Then the girl herself showed up with an "I am the girl in the Monistat pic, AMA" thread.

It can be a bit raucous, but it can be a lot of fun too.
posted by Decani at 9:59 AM on September 14, 2010

Debates about Reddit aside, I think we can all agree that the donations are pretty sweet.

And to that extent, if you're broke ass broke and would like to help. GO HERE and vote for any of the projects you see on the page. Once one million votes have been received across all the projects, Sonic restaurants will kick down another $100,000 to donorschoose.org
posted by tylerfulltilt at 10:17 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

How much overlap do you think there is between Colbert Nation and Anonymous?
posted by davejay at 10:24 AM on September 14, 2010

How much overlap do you think there is between Colbert Nation and Anonymous?

Well Anonymous are famous for being trolls and Colbert makes a living out of trolling the right every weeknight at 10:30 easter time
posted by tylerfulltilt at 11:11 AM on September 14, 2010

@loquacious Our differences make us stronger and all that happy hippie horseshit.

Hey man, did you know that if you dry that stuff out, you can like, smoke it?

Seriously though MeFolk, it's good to laud Reddit & all, but MeFi becoming Reddit wud (on average) Not be A Good Thing.
posted by Twang at 11:14 AM on September 14, 2010

Reddit's a big automatically moderated community. Yes, there are admins and stuff, but it's mostly managed via votes. This can be good and bad. Tyranny of the majority and all that.

Meanwhile, Metafilter is a more artisan community, where the mods are directly involved in making sure that discussions are respectful, constructive and appropriate.

Both have their merits and flaws. As a person who loves both sites, I don't think we really need to say one is better than the other. But let me just say I'd sooner go to a MetaFilter meetup than a Reddit one. Less of a frat bro vibe coming from here.

[Note that I have been to MeFi meetups, but not Reddit meetups]
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:25 AM on September 14, 2010

Just to be clear, I was saying that turning MetaFilter into Reddit or Reddit into Metafilter would destroy either site's merit. Of course, Reddit could stand to be a bit more mature. Obnoxious "ironic" misogyny is one thing they could shed. Although they're better about it than Digg was, when Digg was still decent.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:34 AM on September 14, 2010

Video: Colbert Hints At Rally Again.
posted by ericb at 11:49 AM on September 14, 2010

"reddit wasn't very nice to me and my wife."

MrMoonPie, The link you provided was a bit disingenuous... if your settings default to "sort by best/confidence" and then you collapse the first thread (by clicking [+] beside the top comment which is often the Digg/frathouse style thread), you mostly get to the decent heart of the reddit majority.

Your link directed to the youtube level outlier/troll comments which typically go unseen at the end of the conversation.

Try this link: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/c85mk/our_marriage_was_once_illegal_too/?sort=confidence

Also, reddit.com/r/pics is the 4chan like subreddit. It's unfair to say that "reddit" wasn't nice based on commenters in that particular subreddit. Most long-term redditors have that turned off and only occasionally visit it by checking out what's happening on the "ALL" link at the top left of the site.
posted by vectr at 12:26 PM on September 14, 2010

Reddit is the link between 4chan and metafilter.
posted by Allan Gordon at 12:45 PM on September 14, 2010

Reddit is like the internet's Mecca. People from every website go there to share their knowledge, stories, jokes, and other memes. Thanks to the subreddit system, you can find information and a community for just about any interest or meme.

Considering that, it's remarkable how civil it is. Downvotes may not be as good as our vigilant mods, but they seem to handle the trolls better than most other systems.

So, that's why you can access stuff from 4chan through it without feeling so damn dirty. The downvotes launder the memes.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:19 PM on September 14, 2010

My periodic attempts to get into reddit, which always fail, would probably be more successful if it weren't so damned ugly. But that's just me, clearly.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:37 PM on September 14, 2010

I thought it was ugly, too, Stav, but I came to like it once I got bored with Digg and wanted a news/meme fix. It's really very functional once you learn where everything is, and there are skins (most via Greasemonkey, IIRC) if it really bothers you.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:48 PM on September 14, 2010

Jesus Christ. I've never met MrMoonPie or any of his family, but I thought that reddit thread was disgusting. Maybe most people on reddit wouldn't make those kinds of comments, and maybe the link selected for some of the worst ones, but personally I'm glad MetaFilter isn't like that, and I probably wouldn't be here if it were. Color me thin-skinned I guess.
posted by naoko at 2:53 PM on September 14, 2010

Colbert approves, apparently. At least, he approves of the giving, not real clear on where he stands on this rally, if there is one, or, well, I don't actually understand what this is about except that people are giving to DonorsChoose, which is nice. Is Colbert supposed to agree to do the rally if people donate X amount to DonorsChoose in his name, or something?
posted by Gator at 4:01 PM on September 14, 2010

Is Colbert supposed to agree to do the rally if people donate X amount to DonorsChoose in his name, or something?

From what I can tell people are merely donating to get his attention and show him that they're serious about it. As mentioned in a few places Colbert is a board member for DonorsChoose.

Colbert apparently keeps teasing the Restore Truthiness people with promising to make some kind of announcement about the rally. I don't watch the show so I don't know what's really going on there. He's had a sort of mutual appreciation thing going for reddit for a while - the admins even sent him a T-shirt and a customized staff reddit mug with his name on it, and he's namedropped the site on his show a couple of times.

Only the most misguided redditor would consider that donating to his favorite charity obligates him to do anything in any way. I think mainly they're just hoping he'll accept and represent. The whole DonorsChoose fund drive thing started as simply a way to show appreciation and to make some noise in a really positive way. It snowballed from there. The positive noisemaking seems to have worked because major news outlets are picking it up.

Everything has happened so fast that there doesn't appear to have been enough time to really plan anything, make traditional commitments or agreements, but the way things going it looks like one way or another there's going to be at least one rally even if Colbert and Stewart can't participate. There's also already some talk of satellite rallies in other major cities to coincide with this.

The whole thing is interesting to me because it's very much user-created. It's not Colbert's idea, it's not like he put out a call to action to his audience like Glenn Beck did. It's not drummed up via angry rhetoric or through top-down promotional spending. It's completely backwards from that with a bottom up, word of mouth via internet promotional model where it simply promotes itself and instead of raising funds to buy advertising, that money is simply being sent to go do some good instead of buying TV commercials or printed materials.

In all it's pretty awesome to see so many people (many of them young, many of them engaging in activism and philanthropy for the first time ever) stand up and be willing to represent, be counted and engage in constructive, positive direct action.
posted by loquacious at 5:23 PM on September 14, 2010 [6 favorites]

So thanks to this thread I reconsidered reddit and made another account. Thanks all! It really is a great place when you know how to customize it. And what to simply ignore (anything I would read on metafilter) and what to look at (lulz).
posted by Solon and Thanks at 5:46 PM on September 14, 2010

They've donated at least $146k at this point. Goodness.
posted by mecran01 at 9:28 PM on September 14, 2010

but I thought that reddit thread was disgusting

That was my initial reaction too; it's some of the dumbest shit I've seen there. But as vectr points out, the sort-by function is a vital part of the reddit community. It's specifically designed to keep in *all* the comments -- even the racist ones -- but place the worst ones at the bottom of the page (and hide the worst of the worst). Most readers sort by top and would get a very different impression of the thread.

You have some nasty stuff slip through, sure. But the advantage is that you do feel you can talk about anything. You don't have a mod making a judgment call on whether your joke is too blue, your link is too nsfw, your ask is too chatfilter, your comment is too much of a derail or (god forbid) you argue robustly when talking about I/P.

I think the mods here (and other moderated blogs i frequent) do a great job. But for the life of me I cannot understand how the very idea of heavy modding has become so taken-for-granted. So many liberals supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas in a free society have embraced forums where ideas are routinely (and surreptitiously) deleted -- sometimes for no other reason than that they are 'fighty', which is taboo.

I cherish reddit and particularly its system for allowing readers to see all the ideas put forward, not just the genteel or palatable ones.
posted by dontjumplarry at 5:08 AM on September 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think the mods here (and other moderated blogs i frequent) do a great job. But for the life of me I cannot understand how the very idea of heavy modding has become so taken-for-granted. So many liberals supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas in a free society have embraced forums where ideas are routinely (and surreptitiously) deleted -- sometimes for no other reason than that they are 'fighty', which is taboo.

Believe it or not, most subreddits are moderated and the mods have the power to delete posts, and frequently do.
posted by empath at 5:27 AM on September 15, 2010

cmon Eideteker, without reddit Metafilter would have about 30% less FPPs

it's an aggregator, so the content isn't originating there. I'd have to believe that in the absence of a reddit, people would read elsewhere for content to bring to FPPs, perhaps on the sites on which they were originally published. It sounds like a good shortcut for finding news from a diversity of sources, but I wouldn't credit it with generating the content, only filtering and promoting it, just like MeFi or A&LD does.
posted by Miko at 6:23 AM on September 15, 2010

So many liberals supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas in a free society have embraced forums where ideas are routinely (and surreptitiously) deleted

Sometimes the free flow of ideas is more awesome when everyone can participate without being treated like shit or subjected to hateful bigotry. Not saying that's always why things are moderated, but it would be nice to have it recognized that free-for-all often means free-for-white-men, highly uncomfotable for everyone else.
posted by the young rope-rider at 6:27 AM on September 15, 2010

So many liberals supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas in a free society have embraced forums where ideas are routinely (and surreptitiously) deleted -- sometimes for no other reason than that they are 'fighty', which is taboo.

They're usually not new ideas. Most people of a liberal bent accept the right of people to have and express ideas, but are not necessarily interested in debating points which are poorly argued or founded. Sometimes moderation policies allow a discussion to progress rather than get bogged down with entrenched viewpoints which are based in emotion and unlikely to change. I embrace forums where ideas are taken seriously and discussed as long as they are not repetitive and as long as the parties are discussing them with goodwill. A site in which a few basic worldviews are offered over and over as talking points without a serious attempt to engage the opposing view would not be a place I would frequent. Moderation can prevent a community from staying stuck on that pointless merry-go-round. Favoring that kind of moderation policy hasn't got as much to do with stances of politically liberal vs. politially conservative, in current ideological terms, as it has to do with the liberal philosophical commitments to progress, reason, and individual liberty (which many political conservatives also share).
posted by Miko at 7:01 AM on September 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

So many liberals supposedly committed to the free flow of ideas in a free society have embraced forums where ideas are routinely (and surreptitiously) deleted -- sometimes for no other reason than that they are 'fighty', which is taboo.

Um... Well, if you think the mods really take THAT heavy a hand in their comment deletions, then that's a topic more appropriate for MeTa. As for the "fighty" comments being deleted, what I typically being deleted aren't comments which attack someone else's ideas, but comments which attack another individual, which then often lead to a response which in turn insults the original insulter, and eventually leads to a "you're an asshole" "no, you are" kind of devolvement of the thread.

It's ugly to read, and doesn't have anything to do with the FPP under discussion.

As a result, most who have been here for any length of time (certainly not all, but most) see what the community standards are and adjust their behavior accordingly. This leads to a higher quality of discussion overall, and results in a lot fewer mod actions because everyone is on the same page as to what is or isn't considered flow of ideas. Insults and "fighty" aren't ideas -- they're playground tactics best left on the playground.

Looking at the reddit thread linked to above, the second comment is "since when has it been illegal to marry a fat ugly bitch", a comment made based on the photo posted as part of the topic post. I'd like to think such a comment would never last long on the Blue.
posted by hippybear at 7:18 AM on September 15, 2010

Grrrr. "what I typically see being deleted..."

My kingdom for an edit window!
posted by hippybear at 7:19 AM on September 15, 2010

hippybear: absolutely, that kind of crap would disappear from the blue. But you'll note it has now disappeared (been hidden) on reddit as well, because it fell below the vote threshold. Both systems work, but I guess my preference is for a system which at least preserves a record of unpopular views rather than photoshopping them out and clone-stamping the gap so it's like they never existed at all. But, yeah, not a discussion for here.
posted by dontjumplarry at 5:24 PM on September 15, 2010

>Oh, and stay away from /r/equality, it's completely overrun with MRA filth.
>posted by Pope Guilty

Blink.

Wow.

Speaking as one of those animate chunklets of filth inhabiting both /r/equality and *gasp*, /r/MensRights, I would like to say that:

1. I am a feminist AND a men's Rights advocate. It's not a zero-sum game. Most of what we want consists of alimony reform and father visitation rights. Most of us would get VERY upset at the merest suggestion that our daughters and sisters were one JOT less bad-ass as our sons and fathers. There have been whole THREADS regarding Susan B. Anthony as someone to emulate.

2. There are some really good discussions regarding modern, practical gender theory in both of those threads. there is a recent one regarding a man's breakup with his fiance' over the idea of servitude in marriage. I'm not saying you should agree with anyone there, just that its a new perspective.

3. Only a few of us actually condone rape, twirl waxed mustachios, or kick newborn puppies.
posted by HalfJack at 2:22 AM on September 16, 2010

I am a feminist AND a men's Rights advocate. It's not a zero-sum game.

I just visited /r/MensRights out of curiosity, thanks to your comment. Are you aware that the mission statement on the home page explicitly states "This is not a feminist subreddit. It was created in opposition to feminism."?
posted by Karmakaze at 6:36 AM on September 16, 2010

I think they are going to do it. I think it will be on 10/10/10. Colbert was hinting that he was going to be busy. From the photos, Stewart hinted that it will be at the Lincoln Memorial.

Or they are terrible teases.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:31 AM on September 16, 2010

Yeah, I expect the announcement to be tonight. They're certainly having fun with this whole "announcement" thing. I'm curious to see what they actually have in mind. If I can get the travel funds together, I might even attend.
posted by hippybear at 10:54 AM on September 16, 2010

And it's been announced. Rally to Restore Sanity -- 10.30.10 -- National Mall.
posted by hippybear at 8:11 PM on September 16, 2010

Glad I live in DC
posted by Ironmouth at 8:24 PM on September 16, 2010

Official Website
posted by hippybear at 8:30 PM on September 16, 2010

and Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive
posted by lullaby at 8:36 PM on September 16, 2010

Dueling rallies on the Saturday right before (1) Halloween, (2) the Election and (3) the November Ratings Sweeps. OMGOMGOMG... this is the most brilliant publicity stunt in mass media history (and I worked for the publicity stunter who staged a mass Divorce ceremony, declared war on Catalina Island and tried to give an L.A. Suburb to the British so I should KNOW a great stunt when I see one)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:05 PM on September 16, 2010 [1 favorite]